Mission, identity and ethics in Mark : Jesus, the patron for outsiders

Abstract:

In this contribution the relationship between mission, identity and ethics in Mark was
investigated by means of a postcolonial and social-scientific reading, with a focus on patronage
as a practice that constituted the main bond of human society in the 1st-century Mediterranean
world. Mark’s narrative world is a world of three kingdoms (the kingdoms of Rome, the
Temple elite and God). Each of these kingdoms has its own gospel, claims the favour of God
or the gods, has its own patron, and all three have a mission with a concomitant ethics. Two
of these gospels create a world of outsiders (that of Rome and the Temple), and one a world
of insiders (the kingdom of God proclaimed and enacted by the Markan Jesus). According
to Mark, the kingdom of God is the only kingdom where peace and justice are abundantly
available to all, because its patron, Jesus, is the true Son of God, and not Caesar. Being part
of this kingdom entails standing up for justice and showing compassion towards outsiders
created by the ‘gospels’ of Rome and the Temple elite.